Meet the Team - Kindling Chimney Sacramento

Meet the Sacramento Team Behind Kindling Chimney Sacramento

Our Sacramento crew isn’t a rotating cast of subcontractors. The same background-checked, uniformed technicians show up to most homes in Midtown, East Sacramento, Land Park, and the surrounding neighborhoods, season after season. What unites them is a shared habit of treating your floors, your air, and your furniture with more care than the chimney itself, because the chimney is metal and brick and the rest is your life. Danny Cortes, Owner, has built the team around one question: would this person be welcome in a stranger’s living room before they ever touch the fireplace?

Call (279) 243-2173

Our People

Marcus T. – Lead Technician

Marcus has been sweeping and inspecting chimneys in the Sacramento Valley for 14 years, long enough that he can usually identify a flue issue by the way the brush drags before he even looks at the camera feed. He holds his CSIA certification and specializes in creosote removal in the older masonry chimneys you find throughout Curtis Park and Land Park, the ones built when Sacramento homes were first wired for gas but kept their wood-burning fireplaces. Marcus is the guy who will tell you honestly that a 1978 prefab fireplace with a rusted flue needs a liner and will show you the camera footage to prove it, not just expect you to take his word. He keeps a photo on his phone of a chimney he rebuilt in 2015 in Elmhurst, because the homeowner still sends a holiday card every December.

Dana R. – Senior Installer

Dana came to Kindling after nine years doing fireplace and liner work in the Bay Area, and she’s the one we send out when a repair involves real structural work: full liner replacements, firebox rebuilds, or installing a new fireplace from scratch. She’s factory-trained on DuraFlex, HeatShield, Gelco, Olympia Chimney, Famco, and Copperfield systems, and she can explain the difference between a poured liner and a stainless steel flex liner without ever making you feel like you asked a dumb question. Dana grew up in Sacramento and has strong opinions about which neighborhood has the best old fireplaces, a debate she refuses to resolve on the record. Off the clock, she’s usually restoring mid-century furniture, which is probably why she’s so particular about drop cloths and moving nothing without asking first.

Elena V. – Service Coordinator

Elena is the live voice on the other end of (279) 243-2173 when you call at 9 p.m. on a Sunday wondering whether the smell from your fireplace is normal. She’s been with the Cedarwell family of companies since 2018 and knows the Sacramento schedule, the local permit requirements, and which technicians are right for which job. Before a sweep is booked, Elena walks you through exactly what will happen, what it will cost, and what to expect when the crew arrives, because she’s the one who sends the written price before any work starts. She’s the reason the appointments run on time and the reason nobody ever has to leave a voicemail. Elena keeps a running list of the best tamale spots in Sacramento and will share it if you ask, though she insists it’s not officially part of the service.

Devon P. – Apprentice Technician

Devon joined the crew two years ago and works alongside Marcus on most sweeps and inspections. He’s the one who sets down the shoe covers and drop cloths the moment he walks through the door, and he’s learned to ask before moving a single piece of furniture, even if it’s “obviously” in the way. Devon is currently completing his CSIA certification and specializes in camera inspections, running the scope through flues and narrating what he sees in plain English while the images come up on screen. He’s also the one who takes the photo of the clean-up before the crew leaves, because a clean hearth is part of the job, not a favor. When the kids are home and the house is quiet, Devon grabs the quieter tools first, which matters more than most people realize until the nap gets interrupted by a vacuum on high.

One Standard, Every Job

The crew in Sacramento operates under the same commitments that every Kindling location follows, because the Cedarwell family of companies has been doing this since 2003 and the standards were written down for a reason. Every sweep, inspection, and repair starts with a written price delivered before the work begins, no exceptions and no pressure at the door. The Cedarwell Care Promise is the working rule: shoe covers and drop cloths go down on arrival, nothing is moved without asking, and a photo of the clean-up is taken before the crew leaves. That’s not a perk, it’s the baseline. And every job is backed by the 365-Day Done Right Promise, which means if the work isn’t right, Kindling makes it right, no fine print and no runaround. The people named above are the ones who make those promises real. Danny Cortes holds them to it, and they hold each other to it, because a safe fire in Sacramento starts with a clean chimney and a crew you actually trust.

Written by Danny Cortes, Owner at Kindling Chimney Sacramento, serving Sacramento since 2003.